SYDNEY — The Exploration Company, a European startup developing a cargo spacecraft, is still studying what happened in the final phases of a test flight three months ago that resulted in the loss of the spacecraft.
The company launched Mission Possible, a test of a reentry capsule, on SpaceX’s Transporter-14 mission in June. The 1,600-kilogram spacecraft survived reentry, but contact was lost before the scheduled deployment of parachutes and splashdown in the North Pacific Ocean.
“We’re still investigating what exactly happened in the last moments right before splashdown,” said Dana Baki, The Exploration Company’s chief commercial and people officer, during an Oct. 2 presentation about the mission at the International Astronautical Congress here. “We know that the parachutes didn’t deploy.”
She emphasized that earlier phases of the mission went well. That included activating payloads from 26 customers inside the capsule, then deploying from the Falcon 9 second stage and reentering. The spacecraft survived reentry, she noted, because controllers received data from it.
“What we don’t know yet is what exactly happened right before the parachutes were supposed to deploy,” she said. That remains under investigation by an external board. The company will share the results once complete.
One question is whether the capsule was stable during its descent. “We believe that it was, but that is part of what needs to be confirmed by the investigation board,” she said.
The Mission Possible reentry was tracked by NASA’s Scientifically Calibrated In-Flight Imagery, or SCIFLI, project, which has monitored many spacecraft reentries. However, Baki said the capsule reentered near the Falcon 9 upper stage, making it difficult to determine which object is which in the imagery.
She noted that The Exploration Company developed Mission Possible in two years for 35 million euros ($41 million), a small fraction of the time and expense of other European reentry demonstrator programs.
“It’s a testament to what we’re trying to do at The Exploration Company, which is to move fast, stay on schedule, do it at a fraction of the cost and learn as we iterate,” she said.
The company is moving ahead with its full-scale Nyx cargo vehicle, slated for a demonstration mission to the International Space Station in the first quarter of 2028. The Exploration Company, along with Thales Alenia Space, won initial study contracts from the European Space Agency in May 2024 for an effort modeled on NASA’s commercial cargo program.
While Nyx will make a test flight to the ISS, The Exploration Company expects its market to come from future commercial space stations. Baki said the company also plans to offer a version of Nyx for flights in orbit for up to six months without docking to a station.
Nothing observed from Mission Possible, including the parachute failure, has altered those plans. The flight, she said, successfully derisked many systems for Nyx, including avionics, guidance and the spacecraft’s thermal protection system.
She added the company has not ruled out another test flight before the 2028 Nyx mission. “From what we know so far, we think that it won’t be necessary, but nothing’s for sure until we get all the answers.”
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